Question regarding exploring

I had some thoughts last night... let's say I start a server (and I'm assuming it will work like Terraria), and my friends join it whenever they can, but at the moment I'm exploring various planets when one of them joins, and I guess he would be wherever he was last logged off - will he be able to see what planet I'm on? Or at least where I'm at?

Also, do stars/planets have names/designations? Like PSR B1620-26 or whatever? How would your friends know if you explored a planet, too? What if you wanted to go off and do your own thing, but wanted to make sure it was an unexplored planet that no one was touched down on yet? Since I guess there will be millions of stars/planets in the game, will there be a journal or list or something to keep track of your progress?

I was thinking something like; each planet has a name, that once you orbit it, it gets put in some journal that you can look back on that will give you some information about it, like whether or not you landed on it, how much of it has been explored (percentage), whether the planet is primarily hostile or has intelligent species, etc etc. I read that these planets will also be in the same spot in every game you make (will they be randomly generated again?). Could you search for a planet using some sort of encyclopedia type system?

 

I believe other people will be able to find you if you want them to be able to find you.

As to whether or not you know if someone else has explored any given planet, I doubt there's a way implemented for the game to do that. Obviously someone could place a sign saying "so-and-so wuz here" but I don't believe there will be a log for you to find that out. This is just my opinion, so it could be completely different.

 

Well I'm at least glad that one person hasn't seen the suggestion before.

I think it would be neat to be able to keep track of all the planets you've explored and basic information about it... it would make sense, especially if you're trying to look for a habitable planet to rebuild your species or whatever the main story was.

Anyway, here is some information I was thinking could be kept track of;

Name: Test Planet
Size: blahblah^19832 (basically, whether the map is small, medium or large?)
Temperature: some number (maybe important if eventually we get some sort of environmental hazard things we should avoid)
Gravity: some number (i guess we can assume earth gravity would be the standard)
Intelligent species: yes/no
- Pre-industrial: yes/no
Landed: yes/no
Explored: 64%

off the top of my head, that's all i can think of, but you can see where i'm going with it. there can be a lot of information you can document about each planet, and this wouldn't be too hard to put in.

 

I believe there is at least something to indicate whether or not you've visited any given planet, just nothing to indicate whether anyone else has visited any given planet.

 

I read that they are throwing around adding in a note system, and there will be bookmarks.

 

Well, as far as I have heard, what happens is that you have to give your friends the coordinates of a planet before they can visit it, sort of like giving them the IP of a server. Thus, they can't visit it without you wanting them to visit it. In addition, I am sure you will be able to name the planets yourself.

 

You can still just randomly explore the galaxy/universe/whatever. You don't have to be given specific coordinates to go to a planet.

 

I'm unsure if there's a system in place. Of course you'd be able to tell people where you are regardless. The game uses a coordinate system for that.

As I understand it every planet has a procedurally-generated name based on the system it's in and its place in that system. And of course there are also unique coordinates.

To tell if a planet has been explored, look for Phallic-shaped obelisks near the spawn point.

(In all seriousness, the chances of you accidentally coming across an explored planet on any given server is probably extremely tiny. As I recall there are something like a decillion planets (that's a 1 with 33 zeroes) out there, so even if all of you stick around the same sector, chances are you'd have to be exploring the same systems intentionally to come across each other.)

There is a journal system, but I think it's oriented more towards smaller stuff. Like, instead of tracking planets you'd be keeping track of the individual types of wildlife and plants you'd found, and perhaps with a reference to what planet they were on.

And yes, the game's universe is constant between playthoughs. They're procedurally generated through a seed that never changes. Or, at least it won't change once the beta reaches phase two.